A New Beauty Mecca and the Jewels of JAR

French beauty brand Guerlain opens a bigger and better flagship. Plus, an exhibit featuring the work of jeweler Joel A. Rosenthal opens at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Nov. 15, 2013 3:02 p.m. ET

The Resurfacing

French Beauty HQ

ENLARGE

Guerlain's newly revamped Paris boutique

Guerlain, the Paris-based perfume company, first gained notoriety in 1853. That was the year Pierre-François Pascal Guerlain created the citrus-laced Eau de Cologne Impériale, a fragrance for Empress Eugénie of France, packaged in a "bee bottle" with raised gilded bees inspired by Eugenie and Napoleon III's coat-of-arms. In 1914, the brand hit another milestone, opening its flagship at 68 Champs-Élysées. When they added the Institut de Beauté spa in 1939, French newspaper Le Figaro called the store "a new temple of beauty."

Now the 185-year-old brand is enjoying another landmark moment: a major renovation, by luxury-retail architect Peter Marino, that will double the space of its original boutique. When the revamped flagship opens Nov. 23, it will offer Guerlain's entire slate of skin care and makeup, and more than 100 fragrances from its catalog.

That includes an eau de parfum version of "68 Champs-Élysées," a mandarin, cardamom and magnolia-infused update of the scent created in 1914, now packaged in a gilded black-crystal Baccarat bottle. Only 30 were made and they'll sell for around $54,000 (40,000 euros) each. The store will continue to offer its bespoke fragrance service: You meet privately with the director of fragrance development and receive a two-liter supply of your signature scent. The price: $56,800. Imperial, indeed. For those who aren't looking to spend thousands, but still want something special, a selection of fragrances packaged in the bee bottle can be specially engraved.

Above the shop, the refreshed nine-room spa has a view of a new orchid-filled winter garden from the waiting room. The spa's menu includes 15 face and body treatments, which can be customized to focus on concerns like facial firmness or muscle tension. One service that "comforts" the stomach claims to help flatten the belly. Massage your way to slim? It doesn't get more French than that.

—Celia Ellenberg

The Exhibit

Diane von Furstenberg once called Joel A. Rosenthal "the Fabergé of our time." Since the Bronx-born jeweler set up shop in Paris's Place Vendôme in 1978, he and the very detailed work he's done under his label, JAR, have shied from the limelight. But on Nov. 20, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York unveils "Jewels by JAR," his first U.S. retrospective. "More than adornments, they're extraordinary pieces of sculpture," said the show's curator, Jane Adlin. Mr. Rosenthal, 70, is known for his technique of hand-setting hundreds of tiny stones to create near-lifelike flora and fauna. In addition to its own catalog, the museum is also reissuing a $750 catalog from Mr. Rosenthal's 2002 London show, a book that has become a collector's item itself.

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